


lost boy

by stover



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Being Lost, Escape, First Impressions, First Meetings, Gen, Spirits, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:16:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13580061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: He’s lived by these woods long enough to know what happens when he strays from the path—of the one made by man and the one made by spirits.





	lost boy

He doesn’t know where he is. **  
**

He’s grown up running through these woods, but everything about these woods is wrong. The branches are too twisted, the leaves too dark; large canvases of tree rings ghost away upon approach, leaving hollow caverns behind. Silver butterflies float over glimmering flowers, and the faintest cry of birds filter through warm, humid air. Gentle streams run through the groves, its current slow and soft. Sometimes, the water splashes; the streams are teeming with fish— _splash, splash, splash—_

_“Teeheehee!”_

He looks up. From one of the twisted branches, a face of rotting wood stares down at him. Deep, crooked gashes form a permanent smile, and jaundice eyes give a dim glow.

“Ooooh, you’re lost!” it giggles madly, jumping up and up and up, into the air. A cold breeze chills the grove; the creature shoots down, landing back on its perch and shaking leaves off their branch. They curl in the wind, winding around the creature like a snake. “You can’t go home!” it cries, fixing its frozen grin on him again, eyes lighting with a ferocious glow as the whirling leaves start to gather around a straw hand. “So play with me!”

The hilt of Rusl’s sword is in his hand just as tinny sound of a brass trumpet echoes in the woods. He falters for a second but trains his eyes upon the creature, knowing never to let it get out of—

_“Teeheehee!”_

A swirl of leaves, and the creature is gone.

He stills. The palm of his sweaty hand is slick against the hilt of his sword. A chill from the breeze seeps ice into his pores. His ears pick up even the slightest of sounds; the splashing stream, the swirling leaves, the soft chirping, the thin, metallic humming—

A sharp, hollow rattling breaks the tension. Wooden figures with ghastly grins and blood-red capes descend upon him like a swarm, swiping and clawing and slicing with their limbs. He meets their parries, breaking and shattering and splntering with the blade of his sword. He chases them off his back, his shoulder, his face; he lunges himself at one, thrusting his sword into its face and cracking it open.

Then he hurls his body to the ground, tucking his sword arm close to his chest and rolling, using the momentum to swing the sword out and slicing up the backside of another wooden creature.

There are still three of them left, all rushing toward him like a rapid wind, but he knows how to fight them off.

He brings his sword arm back, pointing the blade behind him and keeping still. The strain at his left arm runs a straight line from the wrist of his left hand all the way to his shoulder, as he digs his heel into the soft earth, and then—he spins. He sees everything and nothing, the woods nothing but a blur of green, brown, red, yellow; he feels the force of his blade as it cuts through wooden bodies, clearing a quick, brutal path; he hears the shattering and splintering of broken wood, the sound not too far from bone.

And then it is silent again, save for his heaving breaths and his thundering heart. No songbirds sing, frightened by the sounds of battle, and even the stream has calmed, the fish having gone deeper into the water. The wind blows, gently rustling through the leaves, but it is warm and humid again, and heavy, for with the thick forest air it carries something new.

A strange, echoing melody, tinny and somber.

When he hears it, somehow over his own harsh panting and the rush of blood in his ears, he stills.

He doesn’t know where he is.

He doesn’t really care.

He’s lived by these woods long enough to know what happens when he strays from the path—of the one made by man and the one made by spirits. He knows the only way out now, is in.

With sword in hand and a glint in his eyes, he chases after the sound, and he runs deeper into the woods.


End file.
